


Friendship: Score and Statistics

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Casey is gone, Dana is everybody´s boss, Natalie is Dan´s boss and that leaves them both in a grey, uncharted area of friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friendship: Score and Statistics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voleuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/gifts).



 

 

 

 

 

"You played _Celebrities_!"

It´s Monday and Natalie corners him against a photocopier; she carries a big leather bag and an airport expression.

“You´re back from St. Lois,” Dan points, fending off the original question –or the original yelling.

“How did you notice?” she stands in front of him with hands on her hips, and that´s never good news. “You played _Celebrities_.”

Dan shrugs.

“You shouldn´t have. It´s my game.”

“We were bored, Natalie.”

“But it´s immoral.”

 _My team lost, anyway,_ Dan remembers bitterly; he blames it on the uncanny impersonation Bobby makes of Bill O´Reilly (though he doesn´t know where she acquired that skill, or what use could she make of it, apart from kicking Dan´s ass at _Celebrities_ ), for the score was really tight until that last round.

“Was it your idea?”

“Would you believe me if I told you it was Jeremy´s?” It is a coward´s strategy, okay, but Natalie´s fury is not something you take lightly. Dan has learned from (painful) experience that tiny women hit harder.

“No. He can be inconsiderate. Just not _that_ inconsiderate.”

Natalie spends the rest of the day angry at him –Dan doesn´t see the point, no matter how many times she mutters “ _there are codes, Danny, codes!_ ” whenever she passes he by.

By the end of the day Natalie is so angry that she misspells “Jarrius Jackson” on the prompter _on purpose_ and Dan suddenly becomes the star of a very good practical lesson on the mechanisms of _head-desking_ in front of millions and millions (if the ratings are good), because he should be able to pronounce “Jarrius Jackson” correctly by now, and why the hell are they covering college basketball now?

 

*

Natalie knows the code; she is a specialist in it –not the code she was murmuring about earlier, whenever Dan was within sight. No, Natalie is a specialist in what she and Dana have nicknamed “the Danny code”.

Ever since Isaac retired and Casey left and Dana became everybody´s boss (including her own), Natalie has been in charge of “keeping and eye on Dan” and translating “the Danny code” over to Dana each day.

Natalie knows she has to be extra careful the days Casey calls –which is once a week, sometimes even less, sometimes unexpectedly, if there´s some noteworthy sports event Casey thought they weren´t paying enough media attention to.

( _Leaving means you don´t get to decide what´s on air anymore, Casey,_ Natalie once heard Dan say on the phone, through the half-open door of his office, not that she was eavesdropping or anything thank you; Dan sounded irritated, tired, sad. _We are perfectly aware Makhaya Ntini claimed five wickets last Friday. We have just decided not to care._ )

Natalie knows that, on the days Casey calls (more so if unexpected), it´s a pretty good idea to compliment Dan on how fantastic his new jeans look on him. And Dan never does the math; he just smiles, content, and thanks her.

For it was Dan who babbled about California and the Laker girls and the L.A: philharmonic; but in the end it´s Casey who moves to the west and Dan who sticks with the show.

And Dan doesn´t know if the Laker girls would have made his life better –but he knows he misses Casey.

*

 

“Jeremy, do you have the Oakland tape?”

From the doorframe Jeremy makes a face; pretty inscrutable for the casual observer but that Dan knows means: _we have the tape, but the segment is seven seconds long, so we´ll need fifteen minutes more to figure out what to cut with the minimum damage done to Jeremy´s sanity._

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Natalie joins him in the hallway.

“My job? No, but I kind of don´t have a choice. See, they won´t give me my check if I don´t.”

“I mean the Zito segment.”

“Yes, I´m sure.”

“Are you sure you want it in the first half, up front, wide, big audience?”

“Yes.”

“You sure you don´t want to push it, let´s say to when everybody has fallen asleep on the couch?”

“Natalie.”

“You like the guy, Dan.”

“I like the guy. The guy is cool. He rocks, he is articulate, he is funny.”

“So?”

“He just happened to play a very lousy game this weekend. We can´t be partial with these things.”

“We can´t? I mean, no, of course. That would be bad. I´m sure there are laws against it.”

“Are you telling me to push it?”

Natalie stops in her heels –not that she is wearing heels, because that would be uncomfortable. And not very professional. It could distract the men in the crew, or so Natalie likes to fantasize.

“That would solve your problems, wouldn´t it, Danny? _Me_ telling you.”

“You are my boss. Boss me around.”

“Not tonight, baby. That´s a call you are going to have to make for yourself. I know it´s not easy but-“

“I won´t push it. We´ll start with Zito.”

“Wow. Tough call.”

Dan knows of the danger of attaching yourself to a player; he is not twelve, he doesn´t want his cards signed anymore, he doesn´t get worked up by sportsmen who can speak something resembling English, he doesn´t go to the games anymore. He is nothing like the new intern who carries pics of Brady Quinn around, like a teenager, or even Bobby and her cute, stupid, secret crush on Jeremy Bloom.

But the real danger, Natalie reminds him when they are reviewing the Oakland tape, is to become a cynic. _Too late for that_ , he comments in a whisper but knows that´s not totally true.

“The moment I stop loving this,” Natalie tells him, motioning towards the screen where Brandon Inge hits a solo home run. “I quit.”

And she means it.

Dan, he suddenly pictures himself as a weatherman in some third-rate station lost somewhere in the middle of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Sports are a pretty good thing to get excited about, in comparison.

“The moment you don´t love it, you should quit, Danny,” Natalie says, somber and solemn.

“The moment that happens, you´ll be the first to know.”

“Promise me.”

And Dan shakes her hand –like a sports gentleman.

*

_Today we are opening with A´s ace Barry Zito, or rather, how the Tigers battered him on what could be called the worst game of his career. Looks like it might be a bittersweet goodbye to Oakland for Zito. Tigers 5, Athletics 1._

*

“Good job, everybody,” Dana says, picking them up at control. “Let´s go to Anthony´s. Let´s hit the road, let´s get wasted, let´s… do whatever one does after getting wasted.”

“Have sex with complete strangers,” Natalie offers, putting her coat on.

“I don´t want to go to Anthony´s,” Dan reluctantly joins the conversation.

Dana stops her cheerful pacing and looks at him as if he had just killed her puppy or insulted Mike Piazza.

“I don´t understand, Danny. What´s wrong with Anthony´s? Please, explain to me what´s wrong with a place we´ve been going to for what seems the most significant part of our adult lives.”

“That´s it. We always go there. Maybe it´s time we explore the neighbourhood a bit further.”

“But I don´t want to explore anything any further, I like this bar. Everybody knows me there.”

“Come on Dana, it´s Anthony´s, not _Cheers_.”

“And –and they have this blue cocktail I like so much.”

“Smurf,” Natalie cuts her.

“What?”

“The blue cocktail is called a smurf.”

“I was watching a spelling bee the other day on cable and the kids were asked to spell the plural of _smurf_. That´s just cruel.”

Dan rolls his eyes. Anthony´s it is, then. But not before on the way downstairs Natalie locks her arm around Dan´s and slaps him softy on the shoulder. _What´s wrong with Anthony´s? What´s wrong with you, Danny?_

And Dan shrugs –oh, he does that a lot these days, everybody has noticed- and mutters something like _”people change”_ and Natalie gets that he doesn´t mean “people”.

*

The thing is, Natalie has always been Dan´s, in a way; sure, he spent years thinking Kim was his secretary but Kim had always been Casey´s in a way, they had that thing going on, that complicity. The same he and Natalie had –have.

Sometimes Dan fantasizes that, had Sam grown up, he´d have liked him to be a bit like Natalie.

(maybe this is why Natalie is the only one he had told; how, no matter how long it´s been, he sometimes _almost almost almost_ says the wrong name on the program, how easy it would be to slip back in into “this is Dan Rydell alongside Cas-“ _but no_ ; no)

*

“Do you know what Liverpool legend Bill Shankly used to say?”

“I don´t like soccer.”

“No, Dan, I doubt he said that.”

Dan smiles, half at the seriousness of Natalie´s expression, half at the way she calls him “Dan” sometimes.

“Okay, what did he say?”

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it´s much more important than that.”

“And what does it mean?”

Natalie shrugs and turns around.

*

_David Eckstein powered the St. Louis Cardinals to the brink of Championship today. Quite a big feat for the smallest player in this World Series. After the commercial Bobby Berstein will explain why size does not matter. At least in baseball. You are watching Sports Night, we´ll be back._

*

Ever since he saw _”Groundhog Day”_ Dan is obsessed with trying to kill time by throwing a deck of cards into a hat. Trouble is, he doesn´t own a hat. The next best thing is a baseball cap signed by Robin Ventura he steals from Kim´s desk. The thing is too old anyway-

-and too small, apparently, because the cards are all over the office´s floor, but none in the cap.

Dan sits down by the door, sighing as he gets to the hearts.

“Hi, Danny,” Natalie says to the air as she enters, leaving a script on the table, on top a pile of papers and cut-out news clips.

“Are all the names properly spelled on that script or do you need me to proof-read?”

She makes a rude gesture.

The ace of hearts falls by her foot, under the desk. She goes sit by his side.

“Nice jeans,” she says.

Dan nods half-heartedly. Maybe he is _beginning_ to do the math.

She takes the deck –well, what´s left of it, and not on the floor- from his hands. She puts the seven right into the cap, without hesitation, with a satisfied grin and a well-it´s-all-about-the-wrist gleam in her eyes. Dan remains stunned, speechless, almost happy with life and the world for a brief, blinding moment; this looks like a scene right out of a movie.

“Oh, Natalie, you _so_ are my best friend.”

“That´s not true. You know it. I know it.”

And yes, with that Dan turns serious, pensive, like he has an on-and-off switch somewhere. He seems to be chewing on his next words.

“You are my best girl-friend. Not girlfriend, just girl _friend_.”

She tilts her whole body a bit and their shoulders touch for a moment.

“And that´s why I shouldn´t have played _Celebrities_ without you.”

“And that´s why you shouldn´t have played _Celebrities_ without me!”


End file.
